DTCO process design coordination engineer at Fab Semiconductor Factory

DTCO is a role that was born in recent years when domestic fab has developed to advanced nodes, mainly used in 14nm and more advanced nodes. The power semiconductors of mature nodes do not need to set this role, and the overall market demand is not large, and the known fabs are mainly advanced nodes such as SMIC/CXMT and Shenzhen fab.

DFM and DTCO are new roles in the era of computer-aided manufacturing, and the emergence of AI tools combined with the high cost of tape-out of advanced nodes makes these two roles increasingly important as manufacturing nodes evolve.

First of all, DFM and DTCO are different concepts, but DTCO is an extension of DFM ideas, DFM mainly focuses on mature processes and platforms, DTCO mainly focuses on design optimization and process innovation in the early stage of R&D.

The two focus is different, because the main ideas are similar, this article mainly focuses on DTCO positions.

DFM is an abbreviation for design for manufacturing and is known as design for manufacturability. Mainly based on the existing mature process and the basically developed process technology, some adjustments are made to the design rules of the chip, such as layout, spacing, line width, etc., to improve manufacturability.

DTCO stands for Design-Technology Co-Optimization. In the past, the traditional node was that the design company basically focused on its own design, but it is becoming more and more difficult to continue to go down at the advanced node, so it is necessary to find a way at the system level of design + process to further promote the device to continue to shrink.

1.DTCO's daily routine

To put it simply, the role of DTCO ≈ the R&D stage (TCAD+PDK+SPICE), which needs to understand the device model, parasitic parameter extraction and TCAD simulation under the advanced node. Most current fabs include DTCO in the R&D department.

Similar to the device engineer, the device engineer obtains the model of the device through multiple simulations and experiments and outputs it to the PDK engineer to make a more mature PDK package. DTCO will pay more attention to the R&D stage and focus on the unit level, such as the standard cell part containing devices and wires, so DTCO will also carry out layout and wiring, cell structure optimization, etc.

In other words, device engineers mainly pursue the performance of the device, while DTCO pursues more comprehensive improvement of chip PPA (power consumption, performance performance, area area), so it is necessary to pay attention to the global perspective of front-end FEOL, middle-end MEOL, and back-end BEOL.

Therefore, the daily work is mainly for data processing, modeling and simulation analysis and layout drawing, including testkey and standard cell standard library units for testing, which is a relatively demanding position. In addition, it is necessary to optimize the plan in conjunction with TD PE/TD PIE/Device, so communication and coordination meetings are essential.

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2.Future development

Obviously, DTCO is an obvious R&D role, so in addition to the existing fab growing into R&D bosses, more engineers will also choose to transfer to the design house, and the more suitable positions in the design house are standard cell design and other positions on the digital backend.

For job transfers within Fab, due to the need to master TCAD/SPICE tools, combined with the understanding of devices, you can consider transferring to Device and PDK positions.

DTCO is a high-threshold technical position similar to Device, which can be attacked, retreated, and defended.

Because there are currently only some advanced node fab and memory factories setting up this position, the overall number of DTCO is small, the salary is high, and the design house in the advanced node is also in demand one after another, which is a more fragrant position in the future.

On the other hand, most of the current DTCOs are still in the exploration stage, and the relevant business processes are not mature, and there may be problems of cross-functional and complex business processes, and newcomers should also be mentally prepared.